Saint-Étienne made weapons here for two centuries. The long shed that now runs down the parade ground is covered in triangular panels, some of them transparent, some of them not — a roof that behaves like an instrument.
At a glance
The Cité du design opened in 2009 on the site of the Manufacture d’armes de Saint-Étienne, in the creative quarter of Manufacture-Plaine-Achille. Its business is design: showing it, teaching it, researching it. Since 2010 it has been a public cultural cooperation body, and it includes the city’s higher school of art and design. The whole site runs to 33,300 square metres.
Key facts
- What it is: a design centre and art school on a former arms factory site
- Opened: 2009; created in 2005 as a joint authority and reconstituted as an EPCC in 2010
- Architects: the Berlin practice LIN, Finn Geipel and Giulia Andi, winners of the 2004 competition
- The works: 16,000 m² laid out between 2006 and 2009, at a cost of €41.5 million; three historic buildings restored, four demolished, two new ones built — La Platine and the observation tower
- Where: Cité du design, esplanade at the Manufacture, Saint-Étienne
- Includes: the École supérieure d’art et design Saint-Étienne
History
The Manufacture d’armes de Saint-Étienne occupied this ground for generations, and its closure left the city with a set of long ranges around a parade ground, and a question about what to do with them.
The answer was a competition, held in 2004 and won by the Berlin office LIN. Between 2006 and 2009 Finn Geipel and Giulia Andi restored three of the historic buildings, demolished four, and added two new ones. The Cité du design opened in 2009 and became an EPCC, a public body for cultural cooperation, in 2010, taking in the art and design school.
The point of the operation was economic as much as cultural: the reconversion of an industrial site in a city that had lost its industry.
What you see
La Platine is the new building that matters: a long, low, level volume laid along one side of the parade ground, its envelope made of triangular panels — some glazed, some solid, some perforated — so that the surface reads as a pattern rather than a wall. At the far end stands the observation tower.
Opposite it are the restored ranges of the factory: pale stone, regular windows, red-tiled roofs. The contrast is deliberate and completely unsoftened, which is why it works.
Practical information
- Exhibitions run through the year, with the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Étienne as the largest of them.
- Check current hours and admission on the Cité du design’s own site.
Getting there
Saint-Étienne is under an hour from Lyon by train; the Cité du design is in the Manufacture-Plaine-Achille quarter, north-east of the centre, served by tram.
Nearby
- The Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole.
- The Puits Couriot mining museum, in the former colliery.
- Firminy, half an hour away, with its group of buildings by Le Corbusier.
Sources
- French Wikipedia, Cité du design (Saint-Étienne) — the 2009 opening on the Manufacture d’armes site, the 2005 creation and the EPCC of 2010, the 2004 competition won by LIN, the works of 2006–2009 with their area and cost, the buildings restored, demolished and built, and the total area of the site.
- Wikidata (Q2974804) — coordinates.
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →Events here — now on & upcoming
- Design en main. Du langage à l'objet — Galerie nationale du design, Saint-Étienne11 Jun 2026 — 07 Mar 2027See the event →
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